Theories of Alcoholism

There has been more than one reason given as to why people abuse alcohol or drugs and this has led to the development of different theories. Here are some of the most common explanations:

The disease model of addiction became the leading favored way of looking at addiction for most of the 20th century and still holds a lot of sway. This is the theory of addiction that has been adopted by 12-step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. In this model the addiction is viewed as illness and the addict as somebody who is the victim of this disease. This theory holds that the addiction can never be cured but the person can have a lifelong remission if they take certain steps. The modern disease theory of alcoholism states that problem drinking is sometimes caused by a disease of the brain, characterized by altered brain structure and function. The existence of alcoholism as a disease is accepted by some within the medical and scientific communities, although critics exist. The American Medical Association (AMA) had declared that alcoholism was an illness in 1956. In 1991, The AMA further endorsed the dual classification of alcoholism by the International Classification of Diseases under both psychiatric and medical sections.

Theory Alcoholism is a chronic, life-long disease, such as diabetes. However, if managed properly, damage to the brain can be stopped and to some extent

reversed. In addition to problem drinking, the disease is characterized by symptoms including an impaired control over alcohol, compulsive thoughts about alcohol, and distorted thinking. Alcoholism can also lead indirectly, through excess consumption, to physical dependence on alcohol, and diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver.

The risk of developing alcoholism depends on many factors, such as environment. Those with a family history of alcoholism are more likely to develop it themselves; however, many individuals have developed alcoholism without a family history of the disease. Since the consumption of alcohol is necessary to develop alcoholism, the availability of and attitudes towards alcohol in an individual's environment affect their likelihood of developing the disease. Current evidence indicates that in both men and women, alcoholism is 5060% genetically determined, leaving 40-50% for environmental influences.

The genetic model of addiction views it as something that people inherit; addiction itself is not something that is inherited but the predisposition for developing the problem is. There is a lot of evidence to support a genetic component of addiction but few would now argue that it is a complete cause in itself. A valid argument is that the fact that addiction seems to run in families may be due to nurture as well as nature. The moral model of addiction holds that those who fall into addiction do so out of choice. This theory is not supported by the experts in the medical and scientific community but it is still held by many individuals and groups. Proponents of this view would see addiction as arising because the addict is morally weak. The cultural model of addiction argues that addiction arises due to the environment in which an individual grows up in. This is more or less the opposite argument of the genetic model and as such it has the same flaws.

STRESS RESPONSE DAMPENING ON ALCOHOLISM

Alcohol consumption can reduce the magnitude of an organism's response to stress. This reducdon is called stress-response dampening (SRD) (Levenson et al 1980).

Researchers can measure alcohol's SRD effects in various ways. Among the most common measures are scales on which respondents are asked to rate their levels of certain emotional states, such as anxiety, tension, nervousness, or apprehension. Another frequently used approach for determining alcohol's SRD effects involves monitoring physiological responses, most commonly changes in heart rate. Finally, SRD studies sometimes include behavioral measures, such as measures of activity (e.g., the time needed to escape an unpleasant stimulus) and expressive behavior (e.g., facial expressions of negative emotional states).

ALCOHOL'S EFFECTS ON STRESS RESPONDING

By the 1980s researchers had conducted numerous studies to determine whether drinking reduced stress. To the surprise of many investigators, the relationship between alcohol and stress was inconsistent. Alcohol consumption reduced stress in some studies, did not affect stress responses in other analyses, and exacerbated stress in still other investigations (Sayette 1993a). (Steele and Josephs [1988] described the latter outcome as the "crying-in-your-beer effect.") These contradictory findings led some researchers to conclude that the tensionreduction hypothesis had not been confirmed. Other scientists argued, however, that despite some discrepancies, the study results generally supported the tension-reduction model. Perhaps the most common conclusion was that alcohol's effects on stress were complex and that further research was needed to specify the conditions under which drinking would most likely reduce stress (see Sayette 1993a).

In recent years many studies have been conducted to clarify the relationship between drinking and stress reduction. Two general areas of inquiry emphasized in those analyses assess the personal or individual differences and the situational factors that mediate alcohol's SRD effects (Wilson 1988). Research

on individual differences seeks to identify those people in whom alcohol is most likely to reduce stress. Research on situational factors attempts to determine the circumstances under which alcohol consumption is most effective in reducing stress. The following sections review various individual and situational variables and the roles that they may play in alcohol's SRD effects. Individual Differences

Researchers have suggested that several personal characteristics may influence the extent to which a person is sensitive to alcohol's SRD effects. These characteristics include a family history of alcoholism, personality traits, extent of self-consciousness, level of cognitive functioning, and gender.

Family History of Alcoholism. Children of alcoholics are at heightened risk of becoming problem drinkers compared with children of nonalcoholics (Sher 1991). Scientists are investigating the mechanisms underlying this increased risk. One line of research in this field has examined whether alcohol consumption may produce an enhanced SRD effect and, consequently, provide greater reinforcement [2] in people at increased risk for alcoholism. These studies have compared the SRD responses of participants with a family history of alcoholism (i.e., family-history positive [FHP] individuals) to the SRD responses of participants without such a family history (i.e., family-history negative [FHN] individuals).

Self awareness Theory

A recent psychological theory (Hull, 1981) suggests that alcohol use may be motivated by a desire to avoid painful states of self-awareness. Highly selfaware individuals who are receiving failure feedback are hypothesized to use alcohol to reduce their awareness of negative self-relevant information.

Hull (1987) proposed that people who are highly self-conscious are most likely to experience alcohol's SRD effects. According to this self-awareness model, self-conscious people constantly evaluate their own performance and may experience stress if the result of that self-evaluation is negative. Alcohol consumption impairs the drinker's ability to encode information from the environment with respect to its relevance to the self. Consequently, both the drinker's self-awareness and the associated stress decline. The stress reduction has a reinforcing effect, thereby increasing the probability of further drinking. Some studies have supported this hypothesis by demonstrating that highly self-conscious people are more sensitive to alcohol's SRD effects (see Hull 1987; Sayette 1933a) Other studies, however, have produced conflicting results.